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Exporting to FireOne**OverviewTo export an "FIR" firing script for your FireOne firing system, you first need to set up your show with launch positions and configure the launch positions for your firing system equipment. All fireworks in your show will need to launch from configured launch positions. Any fireworks not on a launch position or on a launch position that has not been configured for your equipment will either be ignored in the exported script or will appear as assigned to default equipment. Once you have added and configured your launch positions and scripted your show, you can select "File > Export firing system script > FireOne FIR" to export the script for FireOne. Configuring Launch PositionsThe simplest configuration for launch positions is to add a single firing system unit to each launch position, each firing system unit representing a single module. Finale will assign shots to the pins on that module until exhausting all pins, and then Finale will automatically generate additional modules with increasing module number addresses at that launch position to accommodate additional shots, skipping over any module numbers used elsewhere in the show. Setting the Firing System Unit ParametersTo configure the launch position, click on its edit button. In the "Edit Position Properties" dialog that appears click the link "Add firing system unit" in the lower left. For purposes of configuration, the firing system units for FireOne are modules, with addresses like 1, 2, 99, etc. The other firing system unit fields you need to set, in addition to the description and address, are first pin (1), number of pins (32), and max. e-matches per pin (1 if you want at most one e-match per pin). You can also set the "caliber filter" or "angle filter" to restrict the each module to a single caliber or angle, among other options. Using Your FireOne Firing SystemAfter you've scripted and exported your show, you can upload it to your FireOne controller using the FireOne 2000 software or later versions. Typically you will already have a WAV file of your sound track, so when you export from Finale you don't have to export the WAV file again. You can reply "No thanks" to the dialog that asks you. WAV files are large, and exporting them takes some time and uses up disk space. Here are the step-by-step instructions after you've exported your script, courtesy of a FireOne/Finale user:
In this method the audio is fed to the sound booth via speaker cables which plug into the headphone jack of the laptop. If you are using time code you need to give the cd to the DJ and he will control the show. For time code you need to create a time code file that is synchronized to the sound track using FireOne's Time Code Wizard or by hand using an audio editor like Gold Wave or Audacity and a WAV file containing a time code track. To help you synchronize the script to the time code or to add a minute or so of leading time in before the show begins, Finale allows you to add an offset to the script events that will be exported in the FIR file. To set the offset, use the menu item, "Show > Set script export offset (for timecode)...". Understanding the Exported FIR ScriptIn the FireOne FIR script format, each row in the script corresponds to a single shot, or electrical impulse on a pin. The rows are sorted by break time, and then by launch time and caliber as secondary and tertiary sort criteria. Since multiple devices can be on the same shot, each row must be able to represent multiple devices. Finale combines the effect names of all devices on the shot into the same field, separated by commas. Finale does the same for the launch positions from which the individual devices launch, except Finale removes duplicate launch position names. Thus if you have a flight of three identical shells from the same launch position on the same shot, they will appear as a single row; that row will contain all three names concatenated with comma separation; and the row will contain the single launch position name of the common launch position. If the three devices launched from separate launch positions (such as if they were scab wired or if the firing system units at the different launch positions were configured with the same address so as to shoot in parallel), then all three launch position names would be in the position field, separated by commas. The full set of fields in the FIR row in order are: break time, launch time, duration time, shell type, slat number, cue number, shell ID, common name, object, position, shell size, dup, priority, location, cSize, productNumber, comment, pyroSlat, pyroCue, and qty. Finale fills in these fields as follows:
** FireOne is a trademark of Pyrotechnics Management, Inc., which has no affiliation with Finale Fireworks. |
